, with two big roundtables of elected officials and experts. let's begin with the lawmakers. senator tom coburn for the republicans and debbie stabenow for the democrats. and congressman hensarlingg. the president said that for there to be a big deal, tax rates on the wealthy are going to have to go up. if that's his bottom line, can there be a deal? >> again, as the speaker has said, unfortunately what we see out of the president is my way or the highway. one dollar revenue for 2.5 of spending reductions. now, after the election, it's a little bit of bait and switch. now he's asking for $1.6 trillion. and if you look closely, for every one dollar of tax increase there's about 20 cents of spending reductions. >> i'm talking about the rates. if the rates go up, can the republicans in the house accept the tax increase? >> no rep wants to vote for a rate tax increase. what that's going to do, is cause 700,000 americans to go from having paychecks to unemployment checks, because of what that's going to do to the economy, george, hardworking americans are going to see a 2% reduction in their

for democrats for raising taxes in the next congressional election. >> absolutely. breaking the republican party would be a benefit to this plan, also, i don't think barack obama minds in the tax rates go up on the middle income people as well. >> paul: he's promised-- you're saying-- >> the ultimate win is to have all of that new revenue for the government and being able to blame it on the republicans. >> paul: wait a minute, if you're saying we go over the cliff, nothing happens in december, come january the president will not turn around and insist on andis ... >> well, things in the middle east went from bad to worse this week with reports to the syrian military is preparing temp cal weapons that could be used against its own people, it's awaiting final orders from president assad. this as protesters clash with supporters of mohammed morsi outside the presidential palace in cairo egypt. in that country's largest confrontation since the uprising of hosni mubarak. we're back with daniel henninger and editorial board member matt comiskey. so, bret. we were told if we did intervene in syria we

that the president is pushing for? >> that's right and i also feel that president obama was re-elected for a reason. an most of the people in this country go along with his idea that the wealthy need to pay their fair share. i think that it would be totally irresponsible on his part and the republicans if they don't come to a decision on this before the first of the year, and get something ironed out -- >> so, richard, what do you think? should we go off the cliff? should we just see where the chips fall? >> no, i do not agree with going off the cliff. we should come to something, some type of an agreement here. but the wealthy should pay their fair share. i do believe in that. >> mayor hall, your town relies on federal funds to keep your water drinkable at the local treatment plant. so how would going off the cliff affect your city budget? >> well, you know, any time that you're dealing with funds that the tax payers money is involve in, you've got to look at the checks and balances and if they cut spending, there is a possibility that that will be cut and our resources will go down the drain lite

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